Fine Line's 'Firebird' on-line

Melbourne's Fine Line Dance has based its latest production on the famous Firebird legend to explore “the notion of internal fire as an immense power, barely contained within physical form”.

Created and filmed from its Melbourne base during and between lockdowns, the work will be premiered on-line.

Fine Lines is a community of mature dancers, directed by Dr Katrina Rank since 2013. The group received the Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Community Dance in 2020. This Firebird is a collaboration between Rank and 20 dancers.

“Firebird is a work about fire in the belly, that thing that catapults you forward, drives you to the edge of the abyss,” she says. “My need to express myself through dance has never dissipated, if anything it has grown stronger as the years go on. This is interesting, because as my body ages and moves less conventionally [as a dancer] I am more inventive and courageous.

“I see this too in the Fine Lines community, a collaboration of mature dancers who continue to challenge the status quo, particularly who can dance, how, when and what about. They are brave. They proudly face the lens and present their unique physicality and stories. Firebird contains many birds. They all hold a fire that sears and scars and stays with you beyond the credits."

The film will be held on-line on Saturday October 9 at 7pm. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session facilitated by Julie Dyson AM, vice president of Ausdance National.

Book here.

Pictured: Belinda Cussens, photographed by Robert Wagner.